


To Command the Sea (the King of Camelot remix)

by hoosierbitch



Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: Betrayal, Dreams, Friendship, Gen, Magic, Trust, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-19
Updated: 2010-05-19
Packaged: 2017-10-09 13:48:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/88132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hoosierbitch/pseuds/hoosierbitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All the times Merlin had said <i>you can trust me</i> he had also been saying <i>even though I don't trust you.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	To Command the Sea (the King of Camelot remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mariana_oconnor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mariana_oconnor/gifts).
  * Translation into Русский available: [Управляя стихией](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3329000) by [krasnoe_solnishko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/krasnoe_solnishko/pseuds/krasnoe_solnishko)
  * Inspired by [To Command the Sea](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/847) by Mariana O'Connor. 



The first time Arthur killed a man he was seven years old and all it took was one finger. His thumb pointing down. And the man on the pile of dry wood screamed until the fire consumed his legs and then stopped. He died with his eyes wide open, staring up at Arthur and his father on his balcony. The wind was fierce and it blew the smoke into their faces. It smelled like burning flesh.

He didn't eat meat again for two months.

He can understand why Merlin was afraid.

It lessens the hurt, but only a little. Because Arthur had trusted Merlin with things that he never would have told anyone else, trusted him with secrets that were shameful and dark and painful. Merlin knew him better than anyone else – better than Gaius or Morgana or Uther, better than any of his knights. Merlin knew as much about Arthur's mother as Arthur did.

And even though none of his secrets were as terrible as Merlin's, even if they would just result in humiliation instead of death if discovered, he still feels betrayal well up inside of him. It sits heavy in his stomach, creeps up the back of his throat, stiffens his muscles. Because all of the times Merlin had said _you can trust me_ he'd also been saying _even though I don't trust you._

There are many reasons why he should tell his father the truth that Morgana had accidentally divulged to him, and no good reason why he shouldn't. The words build up behind his teeth again and again and no matter how many times they threaten to spill out of him – they don't. He says nothing. Merlin, who is literally within touching distance of the thrown and crown and king of Camelot, is a warlock.

And Arthur does nothing about it.

* * *

Over breakfast he thinks _he could be tricking all of us. It could all just be a spell, a trick, a curse._ He's never liked anyone as much as he likes Merlin, never trusted anyone so quickly before. It's enough to arouse his suspicion. But then Merlin splashes the bathwater all over the floor, and falls off his horse when they go hunting, and laughs himself sick at some stupid joke the stablemaster makes.

And that night, Arthur dreams. And in his dreams his thumb is pointed down and his nostrils sting with the scent of flesh. He does not dream Merlin burning, not exactly, not the way he knows it would happen. Not the way Merlin's thin body would struggle against the ropes, not the way his voice would sound as he screamed. He dreams plumes of smoke and the rich, repulsive scent and then the ashes. He dreams the breeze that blows the smoke into his eyes also blows the ashes away. Albion is large, her lands far-reaching, but Ealdor is not so very far away. He dreams Hunith crying, the wind carrying dirt and whispers and ash to her home.

And the only thing he hears – not flames, not screams, not Merlin laughing – is his father's voice. _They lie. They promise you what you want most in the world and then they take from you what you can't afford to lose_.

And then there comes the morning when he realizes that at some point in the two years that Merlin has been his (truly awful) manservant, he has grown to trust him more than he trusts his own father. More than his own king.

Maybe it is a lie.

Or maybe his father asked for what he was not meant to have and gave what never should have been his to offer.

Maybe his father is wrong.

* * *

He takes Merlin to the seaside. And they're far from the edge of the cliff but nonetheless he feels like he is back in the cave, clinging to the rock with his fingernails, he feels a second away from falling.

"Show me."

And for the first time he prepares to defend himself from Merlin. Because his secret leaves them both vulnerable. Arthur has lived his entire life knowing that magic is the biggest threat to Camelot's safety. Magic killed his mother. Magic changed his father. And Merlin is magic.

"Show me what you can't tell me."

And Merlin makes the sea dance.

Afterwards, he swears his allegiance to Arthur. But it is the smile of relief on his face, not his words, that convinces Arthur that Merlin - no matter what secrets had stood between them - would always be his friend.

* * *

In the five years between Morgana telling him Merlin's secret and becoming king, they draw up plans for how to change the laws of Camelot. Granting full trials against any accused of witchcraft, instituting a gradual reduction in the harshness of sentencing, and a loosening of the restrictions on weather-witches and shamans and herb doctors. Gradually building up to a complete repeal on the ban against magic.

It is a two-year plan, and it is, despite what Morgana says about it when she's feeling cranky, a very good plan.

But Arthur's fought enough battles to know how well plans hold up in the face of reality and two months after his father dies Camelot goes to war.

He has trained his knights and armed his men, they are as prepared as they can be. He has killed before, he has lost men before, he bears his scars and his standard with pride. He is ready to command. He is ready to lead. He is ready to _fight_.

Merlin wins them the war in three days.

They do not escape wholly unscathed, but Arthur has no doubt that were it not for Merlin they would have fought for months. He burns with unused adrenaline but then he looks at the ranks of his men _alive, alive, alive_ and stops glaring at his unscratched shield.

On the first day Merlin called rain and thunder from the sky and brought it down on the opposite side of the battlefield. On the second he commanded the enemy's horses to run and their dogs to turn on them. Their enemy was not cowed by those displays, and when the third day dawned the mud was streaked with blood.

Arthur spent the third morning walking through the tents of the wounded with Merlin trailing in his wake, uncomfortable in his new robes and unused to the stares that followed him. Arthur held the hands of the men who were dying for him. Had his scribe take down their names and home villages and last words. He closed the eyes of the men who had already gone, and shook the physicians' hands before leaving.

Just before noon on the third day Merlin's eyes glowed red. The muddy ground tore underneath their enemy's feet.

Merlin ripped the earth apart. The men who did not die or run surrendered immediately.

Arthur shouted out his last orders and caught Merlin before he fell.

* * *

His tent is quiet and dry and he carries Merlin inside quickly, trusting his generals to oversee the last of the clean-up. He strips Merlin of his robes and puts him into the bed that neither of them had bothered to make that morning. Merlin is no longer his manservant but Arthur hadn't yet been able to replace him. He crawls in after him and pulls the furs tight around them.

Merlin is shaking. And Arthur wraps himself around him. It feels like he's trying to hug a lightning bolt. It smells like there's a storm trapped in their tent, like Merlin is trying to hold back the sky but his body is taut with the effort, trembling with the strain, and Arthur knows that at any moment he could lose control.

And still, he holds on. Because Merlin is impossibly fragile and unimaginably powerful and Arthur needs for him to be okay.

"I don't know how I did that," Merlin whispers. And knowing that the court warlock is as clueless with his magic as he is with everything else isn't very reassuring but it is so very _Merlin_ that it makes Arthur laugh.

Until he realizes that Merlin is not shaking but crying. "I could have killed them," Merlin says, and Arthur does not mention the bodies that litter the field – "I could have killed all of them," Merlin says again, and he twists until he's facing Arthur and grabs his shirtfront and Merlin's eyes are still gold his hands still burn with power it _hurts_.

This is not what Arthur imagined it would be like. Being king. He'd thought that the end of the war would leave him breathless and bloody and barely standing. But while the sword Merlin forged for him hasn't been blooded since his coronation, he realizes that it is only because Merlin is his weapon now.

"I can't be this," Merlin says. "The magic is inside of me and I can't control it – "

It is not on the battlefield, but here. Here on the hard ground, being burnt by Merlin's hands and bruised by his bony elbows that he has to summon up every ounce of strength he earned as a prince. Right now, with Merlin crying against his chest, looking to him for help.

"Okay," he says. "Okay." Merlin was not raised to be king. Merlin didn't grow up knowing that one day he would be making decisions that would end the lives of hundreds. Of thousands.

"I can't," Merlin says.

"Don't worry," he says, running his hand down the long, familiar planes of Merlin's body. "I can."

His father had lectured him his entire life about power and strength and violence. But that is not what overwhelms him, after the war. Not his men who are dying in his tents, but the men who fell into the earth. Not the power, but the responsibility.

Merlin was his weapon. Merlin could kill them all.

Arthur would make sure he didn't have to.


End file.
